Posts within the category: Public relations

February 20, 2012

Do-it-Yourself Outreach: Advice from a PR Pro

This guest blog post comes from writer and publicity expert Erin Flynn Jay of Flynn Mediaand it goes out to all the book authors. In these lean times, you'll probably have to do your own PR. Read Erin's practical suggestions on how to draw attention to your book.

"Many authors decide to promote their own books. Are you publicizing yours? Perhaps your publisher is not allocating a lot of in-house PR for the book, and you don’t have a budget to hire a PR firm. If this is the case, it will be important for you to do some PR for your own book.

I’ve been in the book PR business for over 10 years, working for agencies as well as my own author clients. Here’s how to best do it without annoying busy editors:

Determine your target media.Who do you want to cover your book? To start, I suggest developing a list of 20 to 30 editors, reporters or bloggers. If you write about parenting, what are the key parenting magazines and online outlets? Ask yourself, “How can my book benefit this contact’s audience?” Nothing annoys editors more than receiving pitches that are completely off-target.

Track down editorial contact info. This will be easy to do via the Internet. Better yet, have an assistant do it. Email addresses and direct phone numbers are key.  

Customize your email via an intro pitch. This pitch should be two to three paragraphs on the book and on your author background. Always try to tie your book into what is happening in the news. If you have time, go even further: Research what these media contacts have written, and suggest a story idea that would complement what they have covered prior. Here's a sample intro pitch:

Story Idea: Good News for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered People
The place of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people in the Christian churches is a highly controversial and debatable issue now. Rep. Michele Bachmann is one politician with an aggressive anti-gay agenda.

As a gay activist and gay Christian writer, Keith Sharpe challenges ignorance and prejudice about LGBT people. His new book, The Gay Gospels, stands against the 'clobber texts' which condemn gay people and powerfully affirms that gay lives are validated in the Bible.

The Gay Gospelsoffers a strong defense against the 'clobber texts' with a powerful affirmation that gay lives are validated in the Bible, all grounded in Biblical scholarship and written in popular accessible style.

The subject line is key. Media are bombarded with hundreds of emails daily--What will interest them to open yours? Make it short and make it sell.
Here are a couple of sample subject lines:

• Story Idea: Good News for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered People
• Interview Opportunity With Gay Activist and UK Author Keith Sharpe  

Send the email and then follow-up. How often, what is enough? A few days later, try a follow-up email first, and see what comes back. If you don’t get a response, call them. Try to get these contacts on the phone Live before leaving voicemails. Always better to get an editor on the phone than to leave them several voicemail messages. You’re a savvy author and businessperson--use discretion. You don’t want to be overbearing and have the media cringe and say, “Not you again!”

Toot the coverage on social media. Traditional media coverage will always be critical---now social media is vital, too. When you start getting some traditional media mentions (magazines, newspapers) you will want to post on social networks. Post a mention on twitter—make sure your twitter is connected to facebook and LinkedIn. Presto--one tweet will let your social media friends know about your placement.

Here's a sample Tweet:  

• Keith Sharpe’s “The Gay Gospels” in Washington Blade: http://bit.ly/pg3BRN. Interested media may contact me for review copies.

.

PR has changed with the rise of social media. Some of the traditional outlets had had to lay off staffers in droves due to the economic downturn. There are more independent bloggers with their own audiences. The rise of Mommy bloggers nationwide is astounding. So in addition to editors and reporters at traditional outlets, make sure you add bloggers and twitterers to your target list. Yes, twitterers are listed in media databases.

Bottom line: There is a whole new crop of media who can write about your book.

Happy pitching!"

Are you trying to pitch your own or someone else's book? If so, tell us your story. What's worked and what hasn't? Share some of your PR strategies here.

October 13, 2009

Social Media Press Release: Tips and Examples

Does the traditional press release format work in the world of 24-hour news, blogs, Facebook and Twitter? Many media professionals think the 100-year-old press release format is ineffective and obsolete. They're calling for a new approach. Read my companion post: The Social Media Press Release: A New Approach to the Old Problem of Getting Noticed.

Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Social Media Press Release (SMPR)

1. Think modular.
Whether you are using the template approach or a traditionally written press release enhanced with multimedia and social media elements, make sure each component or section of the release can stand alone.

2. Link, link, link.
Optimize links for search engine visibility. If your SMPR is being distributed by a news service, make sure to link back to a landing page or newsroom at your website. Include links to related information at other pages on your website. Link out to social bookmarking and social media sites, such as delicious, Digg, and Technorati.

3. Post content in multiple channels.
In addition to including multimedia elements in your SMPR, post components of your release to appropriate sites for increased search engine visibility. For example, post your videos on YouTube and your photos on Flickr.

4. Write your SMPR content for online readers. They scan rather than read word for word. Write short, use bulleted lists, and write message headings.

5. Use keywords to maximize search engine ranking.
Repeat the keywords in headlines, subheads, and in the text of the social media release.

6. Use visuals.
Include your logo, a headshot of your organization's CEO, maps and charts, and photos of products or services. Also include video. Videos don’t have to be professionally produced. YouTube-quality videos help reporters understand your product, and that helps them explain it to their readers.

7. Incorporate interactivity. Engage in a conversation with the media and customers by providing a way for them to comment or ask questions.

Social Media Press Release: Resources and Examples

• “Anatomy of the Social Media Press Release,”
  a presentation delivered at the 2008 Public Relations Society of America conference, explains the concepts behind the SMPR and includes a good annotated sample.
• The National Restaurant Association lists its social media release going back to December 2008,including “Winners of 2009 Restaurant Neighbor Award for Outstanding Community Service“ and “Healthy Kids’ Meals, Local Produce, Mini Desserts Among Hottest Menu Trends for 2009.”
• The 2008 GovGab SMPR announced the first birthday of GovGab, the U.S. government blog. The multimedia elements in this SMPR include audio, commenting, photos of the GovGab bloggers, and links to their bios.
• “Second Life Reforestation Project Qualifies as a Finalist in American Express Members Project,” distributed by RealWire, is a good example of an SMPR that uses the full gamut of social media elements, including video, tags, and commenting.
• Dupont’s release on Nomex® On Demand™ , fiber technology that protects firefighters, is a good example of a wire service traditional release enhanced with multimedia elements, including a YouTube video that shows how  Nomex® On Demand™ actually works.

-- Marilynne Rudick (guest blogger)

October 10, 2009

Social Media Press Release: A New Approach to the Old Problem of Getting Noticed

When more than 50 people lost their lives in a train wreck in 1906, Ivy Lee—the father of public relations—issued the first-ever news release, a public statement about the crash from Pennsylvania Railroad officials. The New York Times was so impressed with this innovative approach to corporate communications that it published the release verbatim.

Getting the NYT to publish a release is still every PR practitioner’s dream. But the reality is that although the press release remained the same for more than 100 years, the media landscape has changed beyond recognition, thanks to 24-hour cable news channels, fewer magazines and newspapers, and thousands of blogs and social media sites. With the major online news services distributing more than 2,000 press releases a day, the odds of your release getting noticed—much less reprinted verbatim—are slim to none. The majority of press releases end up in journalists’ trash bins.

In his 2006 blog post Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die!, Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher argued that the traditional press release incurs lots of expense and effort for little return. He issued a clarion call: Ditch the 100-year-old format and reinvent the press release to reflect the needs of today’s media.

Foremski’s redo—the social media press release, or SMPR—called for stripping the press release of “top-spin” (claims that something is the biggest, the newest, the best) and deconstructing the release into stand-alone components:

• A brief, straightforward description of the announcement about the new product, event, or service
• Quotes from top executives, customers, users, and analysts
• Financial information
• Product specs or other relevant details
• Multimedia elements
• Links to the organization’s website and external links to other news stories or resources
• Tagged content so that information can be easily found by search engines and social bookmarking sites, such as share-it!, Technorati, and delicious.

Announcing The Social Media Press Release Template
It didn’t take long for Foremski’s ideas about a 21st century press release to gain traction. Shift Communications was first out of the gate with its Social Media Press Release Template. True to form, it announced the SMPR template with, you guessed it, a release that uses the template. With input from PR professionals and journalists, the Social Media Group offered a refinement in 2008: its own social media press release template. Social Media Group’s template emphasizes audio, video, blogs, and interactivity.

Some Assembly Required
Foremski said that given the components of the SMPR, writers—whether they’re reporters or bloggers—can assemble the news story and put their own slant on the content. For example, a journalist writing an article about economic trends could draw from several SMPRs and buttress forecasts from the Federal Reserve with statistics from researchers and think tanks, as well as a quote drawn from the National Restaurant Association’s social media news release about economic trends in the restaurant industry.

Hybrid Releases: The Best of Old and New
Although some organizations have fully embraced the social media press release format, they are a definite minority. A 2009 MarketingSherpa study found that nearly 50 percent of B2B and B2C companies didn’t know what a social media press release was. Of those who did, only 20 percent actually distributed them.

More common is the multimedia news release (MNR), a press release that uses the traditional linear format but incorporates social media elements—photos, videos, podcasts, and social bookmarking. The online distribution services, including PRWeb, PRNewswire, and RealWire, offer MNR options. You can see an MNR example at the PRWeb site: “DuPont Introduces Innovative Nomex® On Demand™ to Better Protect Firefighters.”

One advantage of publishing an MNR rather than an SMPR: you “control” the story a bit more, while enriching it with multimedia and social media elements to make it more appealing to the reporter or blogger.

Overcoming Two SMPR Obstacles
One of the stumbling blocks in the adoption of social media press releases is figuring out how to distribute them. That’s why many organizations use multiple distribution channels. You can:

• Send an e-mail to your organization’s press or subscriber list that includes a link to the SMPR.
• Push the SMPR out via an RSS feed.
• Use online news release services, such as PRWeb, PRNewsWire, or RealWire, which have incorporated multimedia capabilities into their press release formats.
• Use a wire service to deliver a traditional press release (cheaper than a wire service MNR) with a link back to the organization’s newsroom, where the release is also available in a social media format.
• Announce the SMPR via social media—Twitter, corporate blog, LinkedIn, and Facebook—with a link to the SMPR.

Yet another challenge is institutional: getting the older staff members, who know products and press relations, to work with the younger ones, who may be web-savvy but have less product knowledge. You’ll have more success if you can get these two groups talking to each other and working as a team.

Changing Format Means Rethinking Goals and ROI
Nontraditional press releases have also changed the goals of a press release. “ROI of Online Press Releases,” a 2008 research study by the Society for New Communications Research, found that reaching customers directly, creating online content, and optimizing for search engines were as important as the traditional goals of announcing news and increasing visibility.

All change takes getting used to, so switching from the traditional press release to the social media press release may happen slowly in your organization. But with traditional newspaper and magazine publishing in a state of upheaval, the risk of clinging to the old press release format is too high. Social media’s no longer a novelty; publishing a press release in a social-media-friendly format just makes sense.

• For more information, see my companion post Social Media Press Release: Tips and Examples.

-- Marilynne Rudick (guest blogger)

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